An Experiment

My brother and I had just ridden off the range when Uncle Jake told us that a tramp was hanging about the corrals and wished to speak with us.

"He looks like hell," concluded Uncle Jake.

We found him, a minute later, curled up on a heap of straw on the shady side of our big barn. He got up as we approached, and stared at us with a curious, derisive intentness of glance, slightly disconcerting.

"You are Englishmen," he said quietly.

The man's voice was charming, with that unmistakable quality which challenges attention even in Mayfair, and enthralls it in the wilderness. We nodded, and he continued easily: "It is late, and some twenty-six miles, so I hear, to the nearest town. May I spend the night in your barn? I don't smoke--in barns."

While he was speaking, we had time to examine him. His appearance was inexpressibly shocking. Dirty, with a ragged six weeks' growth of dark hair upon his face, out at heel and elbows, shirtless and shiftless, he seemed to have reached the nadir of misery and poverty. Obviously one of the "broken brigade," he had seemingly lost everything except his manners. His amazing absence of self-consciousness made a clown of me. I blurted out a gruff "All right," and turned on my heel, unable to face the derisive smile upon the thin, pale lips. As I walked towards the house, I heard Ajax following me, but he did not speak till we had reached our comfortable sitting-room. Then, as gruffly as I, he said, "Humpty Dumpty--after the fall!"

We lit our pipes in silence, sensible of an extraordinary depression in the moral atmosphere. Five minutes before we had been much elated.

The spring round-up of cattle was over; we had sold our bunch of steers at the top price; the money lay in our small safe; we had been talking of a modest celebration as we rode home over the foothills. Now, to use the metaphor of a cow county, we had been brought up with a sharp turn! Our prosperity, measured by the ill-fortune of a fellow-countryman, dwindled. Ajax summed up the situation: "He made me feel cheap."

"Why?" I asked, conscious of a similar feeling. Ajax smoked and reflected.

"It's like this," he answered presently. "That chap has been to the bottom of the pit, but he bobs up with a smile. Did you notice his smile?"

I rang the bell for Quong, our Chinese servant. When he came in I told him to prepare a hot bath. Ajax whistled; but as Quong went away, looking rather cross, my brother added, "Our clothes will fit him."

The bath-house was outside. Quong carried in a couple of pails full of boiling water; we laid out shaving tackle, an old suit of grey flannel, a pair of brown shoes, and the necessary under-linen. A blue bird's-eye tie, I remember, was the last touch. Then Ajax shrugged his shoulders and said significantly, "You know what this means?"

"Rehabilitation."

"Exactly. It may be fun for us to rig out this poor devil, but we must do more than feed and clothe him. Have you thought of that?"

I had not, and said so.

"This is an experiment. First and last, we're going to try to raise a man from the dead. If we get him on to his pins, we'll have to supply some crutches. Are you prepared to do that?"

"If you are."

"Right! Of course, he may refuse our help. It wouldn't surprise me a little bit if he did refuse."

When our preparations were complete, we returned to the barn. In a few words Ajax told the stranger of what had been done.

"After supper," he concluded, "we'll talk things over. Times are rather good just now, and something can be arranged."

"You're very kind," replied the tramp; "but I think you had better leave me in the barn."

"We can't," said my brother. "It's too beastly to think of you like this."

Nevertheless, we had to argue the matter, and I ought to add that although we prevailed in the end, both Ajax and I were aware that the man's acceptance of what we offered imposed an obligation upon us rather than upon him. As he was about to enter the bath-house, he turned with the derisive smile on his lips--

"If it amuses you," he murmured, "I shall have earned my bath and supper."

When he reappeared, nobody would have recognised him. So far, the experiment had succeeded beyond expectation. A new man walked into our sitting-room and glanced with intelligent interest at our household gods. Over the mantel-piece hung an etching of the Grand Canal at Venice. He surveyed it critically, putting up a pair of thin hands, as so to shut off an excess of light.

"Jimmie Whistler taught that fellow a trick or two," he remarked.

"You knew Whistler?"

"Oh yes."

We left him with Punch and a copy of an art journal. Ajax said to me, as we went back to the barn--

"I'll bet he's an artist of sorts."

It happened that we had in our cellar some fine claret; a few magnums of Léoville, '74, a present from a millionaire friend. We never drank it except upon great occasions. Ajax suggested a bottle of this elixir, not entirely out of charity. Such tipple would warm a graven image into speech, and my brother is inordinately curious. Our guest had nothing to give to us except his confidence, and that he had withheld.

We decanted the claret very carefully. As soon as our guest tasted it, he sighed and said quietly--

"I never expected to taste that again. It's Léoville, isn't it? And in exquisite condition."

He sipped the wine in silence, while I thought of the bundle of foul rags upon our rubbish heap. Ajax was talking shop, describing with some humour our latest deal, and the present high price of fat steers. Our guest listened politely, and when Ajax paused, he said ironically--

"Yours is a gospel of hard work. I dare say you have ridden two horses to a standstill to-day? Just so. I can't ride, or plough, or dig."

Ajax opened his lips to reply, and closed them. Our guest smiled.

"You are wondering what brought me to California. As a matter of fact, a private car. No, thanks, no more claret."

Later, we hoped he might melt into confidence over tobacco and toddy. He smoked one cigar slowly, and with evident appreciation; and, as he smoked, he stroked the head of Conan, our Irish setter, an ultra-particular person, who abominated tramps and strangers.

"Conan likes you," said Ajax abruptly.

"Is that his name? 'Conan,' eh? Good Conan, good dog!" Presently, he threw away the stub of his cigar and crossed to a small mirror.

With a self-possession rather surprising, he began to examine himself.

"I am renewing acquaintance," he explained gravely, "with a man I have not seen for some months."

"By what name shall we call that man?" said Ajax boldly.

There was a slight pause, and then our guest said quietly--

"Would 'Sponge' do? 'Soapy Sponge'!"

"No," said my brother.

"My father's Christian name was John. Call me 'Johnson.'"

Accordingly, we called him Johnson for the rest of the evening. While the toddies were being consumed, Johnson observed the safe, a purchase of my brother's, in which we kept our papers and accounts and any money we might have. We had bought it, second-hand, and the vendor assured us it was quite burglar-proof. Ajax mentioned this to our guest. He laughed presently.

"No safe is burglar-proof," he said; "and most certainly not that one." He continued in a slightly different tone: "I suppose you are not imprudent enough to keep money in it. I mean gold. On a big, lonely ranch like this all your money affairs should be transacted with cheques."

"We are in the wilds," said Ajax, "and it may surprise you to learn that not so very long ago the Spanish-Californians who owned most of the land kept thousands of pounds in gold slugs. In the attic over this old 'adobe,' Don Juan Soberanes, from whom we bought this ranch, kept his cash in gold dust and slugs in a clothes-basket. His nephew used to take a tile off the roof, drop a big lump of tallow attached to a cord into the basket, and scoop up what he could. The man who bought our steers yesterday has no dealings with banks. He paid us in Uncle Sam's notes."

"Did he?"

Shortly afterwards we went to bed. As our guest turned into the spare room, he said whimsically--

"Have I entertained you? You have entertained me."

Ajax held out his hand. Johnson hesitated a moment--I recalled his hesitation afterwards--and then extended his hand, a singularly slender, well-formed member.

"You have the hand of an artist," said the ever-curious Ajax.

"The most beautiful hand I ever saw," replied Johnson imperturbably, "belonged to a--thief. Good-night."

Ajax frowned, turning down the corners of his lips in exasperation.

"I am eaten up with curiosity," he growled.

*

Next morning we routed out an old kit-bag, into which we packed a few necessaries. When we insisted upon Johnson accepting this, he shrugged his shoulders and turned the palms of his hands upwards, as if to show their emptiness.

"Why do you do this?" he asked, with a certain indescribable peremptoriness.

Ajax answered simply--

"A man must have clean linen. In the town you are going to, a boiled shirt is a credential. I should like to give you a letter to the cashier of the bank. He is a Britisher, and a good fellow. You are not strong enough for such work as we might offer you, but he will find you a billet."

"You positively overwhelm me," said Johnson. "You must be lineally descended from the Good Samaritan."

Ajax wrote the letter. A neighbour was driving in to town, as we knew, and I had arranged early that morning for our guest's transportation.

"And what am I to do in return for these favours?" Johnson demanded.

"Let us hear from you," said my brother.

"You shall," he replied.

Within half an hour Johnson had vanished in a buckboard and a cloud of fine white dust.

Upon the following afternoon I made an alarming discovery. Our burglar-proof safe had been opened, and the roll of notes was missing. I sought Ajax and told him. He allowed one word only to escape his lips--

"Johnson!"

"What tenderfeet we are!" I groaned.

"Lineal descendants of the Good Samaritan. Well, he has had a long start, but we must catch him."

"If it should not be--Johnson?"

"Conan would have nailed anybody else."

This was unanswerable, for Conan guarded our safe whenever there was anything in it worth guarding. Ajax never is so happy as when he can prove himself a prophet.

"I said he was an artist," he remarked. "The truth is, we tried an experiment upon the wrong man."

A few minutes later we took the road. We had not gone very far, however, before we met the neighbour who had driven Johnson to town. He pulled up and greeted us.

"Boys," said he. "I've a note for ye from that Britisher."

We took the note, but we did not open it till our Californian friend had disappeared. We had been butchered, but as yet the abominable fact that a compatriot had skinned us was something we wished to keep to ourselves.

"Great Minneapolis!" said Ajax. "Look at this!"

I saw a bank receipt for the exact sum which represented our bunch of steers.

"Is that all?" I asked.

Ajax ought to have shouted for joy, but he answered with a groan.

"Yes; there isn't a line of explanation. He said we should hear from him."

"And we have," I replied.

We returned to the ranch very soberly. When Ajax placed the bank receipt in the safe, he kicked that solid piece of furniture.

"We'll drive in comfortably to-morrow, and find out what we can," he observed.

"I don't think we shall find Johnson," I murmured.

Nor did we. The cashier testified to receiving the roll of notes, but not the letter of introduction. We hunted high and low for Johnson; but he was not.

"How did he get away without money?" he asked.

"He had money. I stuck a twenty-dollar bill into his coat pocket."

Before leaving town, we visited our gunmaker, with the intention of ordering some cartridges. By the merest chance, he spoke of Johnson.

"A Britisher was in here yesterday: somethin' o' the cut o' you boys."

"In a grey suit with a brown sombrero?"

"Sure enough."

"Did he buy cartridges?"

"He bought a six-shooter and a few cartridges."

"Oh!" said Ajax.

We found ourselves walking towards a secluded lot at the back of the Old Mission Church. Ajax asked me for an opinion which I was too dazed to express.

"We've done a silly thing, and perhaps a wicked thing," said my brother. "If that poor devil is lying dead in the brush-hills, I shall never forgive myself. We've given a starving man too heavy a meal."

"Bosh!" said I, believing every word he uttered--the echo, indeed, of my own thoughts. "I feel in my bones we are going to see Johnson again."

Twenty-four hours later we heard of him. The Santa Barbara stage had been held up by one man. It happened, however, that a remarkably bold and fearless driver was on the box. The stage had been stopped upon the top of a hill, but not exactly on the crest of it. The driver testified that the would-be robber had leaped out of a clump of manzanita, just as the heavy, lumbering coach was beginning to roll down the steep hill in front of it. To pull up at such a moment was difficult. The driver saw his chance and took it. He lashed the leaders and charged straight at the highwayman, who jumped aside to avoid being run over, and then, being a-foot, abandoned his enterprise. He was wearing a mask fashioned out of a gunny-sack, new overalls, and brown shoes!

That same night, at Los Olivos, a man wearing brown shoes was arrested by a deputy sheriff because he refused to give a proper account of himself; but, on being searched, a letter to the cashier of the San Lorenzo bank, signed (so ran the paragraph) by a well-known and responsible Englishman, was found in the pocket of his coat. Whereupon he was allowed to go his ways, with many apologies from the over-zealous official.

"Johnson!" said Ajax.

"Did he hold up the stage?" I asked.

"Of course he did" replied my brother contemptuously.

After this incident, Johnson, who for a brief time had loomed so large in our imaginations, faded into a sort of wraith. Years passed, bringing with them great changes for me. I left California and settled in England. I wrote a book which excited a certain amount of interest, and inspired some of my old school-fellows to renew acquaintance with me. By this time I had forgotten Johnson. He was part of a distant country, where the fine white dust settles thickly upon all things and persons. In England, where the expected, so to speak, comes to five o'clock tea, such surprising individuals as Johnson appear--if they ever do appear--as creatures of a disordered fancy or digestive apparatus. Once I told the story at the Scribblers' Club to a couple of journalists. They winked at each other, and said politely that I spun a good yarn, for an amateur! "I never tell a story," said the elder of my critics, "till I've worked out a climax.

You leave us at the top of a confounded hill in California, bang up in the clouds."

And then the climax flitted into sight, masquerading as a barrel of claret. The claret came from Bordeaux. It was Léoville Poyferré, 1899. Not a line of explanation came with it, but all charges were prepaid. I wrote to the shippers. A Monsieur had bought the wine and ordered it to be consigned to me. Readers of this story will say that I ought to have thought of Johnson. I didn't. I thanked effusively half a dozen persons in turn, who had not sent the claret; then, hopelessly befogged, I had the wine bottled.

However, Johnson sent the wine, for he told me so. I had been passing a few days at Blois, and was staring at the Fragonard which hangs in the gallery of the château, when a languid voice said, "This is the best thing here."

"Hullo, Johnson!" I exclaimed.

"Hullo!" said he.

He had recognised me first, and addressed the remark about the picture to me. Nobody else was near us. We shook hands solemnly, eyeing each other, noting the changes. Johnson appeared to be prosperous, but slightly Gallicised.

"How is--Ajax?" he murmured.

"Ajax has grown fat. Can't you dine with me?"

"It's my turn. We must order a bottle of Léoville at once."

"You sent that wine," I exclaimed. There was no note of interrogation in my voice. I knew.

"Yes," he said indifferently; "it will be worth drinking in about ten years' time."

We had an admirable dinner upon a terrace overhanging the Loire, but the measure of my enjoyment was stinted by Johnson's exasperating reticence concerning himself. He talked delightfully of the châteaux in Touraine; he displayed an intimate knowledge of French history and archaeology, but I was tingling with impatience to transport myself and him to California. And he knew this--the rogue!

Finally, as the soft silvery twilight encompassed us, he told what I wanted to know.

"My father was a manufacturer who married a Frenchwoman. My brothers have trodden carefully and securely in my father's footsteps. They are all fairly prosperous--smug, respectable fellows. I resemble my mother. After Eton and Christ Church I was pitchforked into the family business. For a time it absorbed my attention. I will tell you why later. Then, having mastered the really interesting part of it, I grew bored. I wanted to study art. After several scenes with my father, I was allowed to go my own way--a pleasant way, too, but it led downhill, you understand. I spent three winters in Venice. Then my father died, and I came into a small fortune, which I squandered. My mother helped me; then she died. My brothers cut me, condemning me as a Bohemian and a vagabond. I confess that I did take a malicious pleasure in rubbing their sleek fur the wrong way. Then I crossed the Atlantic as the guest of an American millionaire.

He took me on in his own car to California. I started a studio in San Francisco--and a life class. That undid me, I found myself bankrupt. Then I fell desperately ill. Each day I felt the quicksands engulfing me."

"But your friends?" I interrupted.

"My friends? Yes, I had friends; but perhaps you will understand me, having seen to what depths I fell, that I couldn't bring myself to apply to my friends. Well, I was at my last gasp when I crawled up to your barn. I mean morally, for my strength was returning. You and your brother rode up. By God! I could have killed you!"

"Killed us?"

"You looked so fit, so prosperous, and I could read you both, could see in flaming capitals your pity, your contempt,--aye, and your disgust that a fellow-Englishman should be festering before your eyes. I asked for leave to spend the night in your barn, and you said, 'All right.' All right, when everything was so cruelly, so pitilessly the other way! Then you came back, taking for granted that I must accept whatever you offered. I wanted to refuse, but the words stuck in my throat. I followed you to the bath-house. Was I grateful? Not a bit. I decided that for your own amusement, and perhaps to staunch your English pride, which I had offended, you meant to lift a poor devil out of hell, so as to drop him again into deeper depths when the comedy was over----"

"Good heavens! You thought that?"

"My dear fellow, you write now, don't you? I'm giving you a bit of psychology--showing you the point of view of the worm writhing beneath the boot of lordly Man. But, always, I meant to turn, if I got the chance. I washed myself; I shaved; I slipped into your nice clean clothes. I'll admit that the warm water removed some encrusted mud from my mind, but it sharpened rather then obscured my resolution to make the most of what looked like a last chance. But when you uncorked that Léoville, shame spoiled it for me."

"You drank only two glasses, I remember."

"It brought everything back--everything! If I had had one more glass, I should have laid myself at your feet, whining and whimpering. The cigar that I smoked afterwards was poppy and mandragora. Through a cloud of smoke I saw all the pleasant years that were gone. Again I weakened. I had aroused your interest. I could have sponged upon you indefinitely. At that moment I saw the safe. Your brother imprudently mentioned that a large sum of money lay inside it.

I made up my mind instantly to take the money, and did so that night. The dog was licking my hand as I robbed you. But next morning----"

He paused, then he laughed lightly. "Next morning----"

"You appeared with the kit-bag! That disconcerted me terribly. It proved what I had not perceived--that you two young Englishmen, tenderfeet both of you, had realised what you were doing, had seriously faced the responsibility of resurrecting the dead. The letter to the cashier, the twenty-dollar bill I found in my coat-pocket--these were as scorpions. But I hadn't the nerve to own up. So I carried the money to the bank and deposited it to your account."

"Then you bought a six-shooter."

"Yes; I meant to try another world. I had had enough of this one. I couldn't go back to my wallow."

"What restrained you?"

"The difficulty of finding a hiding-place. If my body were discovered, I knew that it would be awful for you."

"Thanks."

"It's easy to find a hole, but it's not easy to pull a hole in after one--eh? Still, I thought I should find some wild gulch on the Santa Barbara trail, amongst those God-forsaken foothills. The buzzards would pull the hole in within forty-eight hours."

"Ah! the buzzards." I shivered, seeing once more those grim sextons of the Pacific seaboard.

"I found the right place; and just then I saw the stage crawling up the grade. Immediately the excitement of a new sensation gripped me. I had a taste of it when I opened your safe. It seized me again, relentlessly. If I were successful, I might begin again; if I failed, I could shoot myself without imposing an atrocious remorse upon you. Well, the pluck of that driver upset my plans--the plans of an amateur. I ought to have held them up on the upgrade."

"And after you failed----"

"Ah! after I failed I had a lucid interval. Don't laugh! I was hungry and thirsty. The most pressing need of my nature at that moment was a square meal. I walked to a hotel, and was nailed. Your brother's letter to the cashier saved me. I realised dimly that I had become respectable, that I looked--for the deputy sheriff told me so--an English gentleman--Mr. Johnson, your friend. That's about all."

"All?" I echoed, in dismay.

"The rest is so commonplace. I got a small job as clerk in a fruit-packing house. It led to better things. I suppose I am my father's son. I failed to make a living, spoiling canvas, but as a business man I have been a mild success."

"And what are you doing now?"

"I buy and sell claret. Any other question?"

"Yes. How did you open our burglar-proof safe?"

Johnson laughed.

"My father was a manufacturer of safes," he answered. "I know the tricks of my trade."